EDITED: A million things happened at once this past week, and I’m leaving for DC tomorrow to attend a workshop on open government in libraries. Since I’m not going to have time to compile all the great submissions I’ve already received, I’m giving the rest of you slackers an extension. Let’s run this baby till Friday, May 9th. Same rules apply. Good luck!

Let’s talk about design, folks.

Between the maker movement, the ease of online publishing (in any form, from Twitter on up), and the push to learn code, there’s a clear theme: We are in control. More and more of the moving parts underneath our technology have been exposed. If we have the skills, we can use this level of control to rewire circuits, unclog pipes, and create better experiences for all of our patrons.

I’ve been working to encourage more design thinking at my new library, it has occurred to me that I’m going about this process backwards. We can teach as many skills as we like. But if people can’t start articulating what it is they actually want out of their library services, we’ll never get any of this stuff off the ground. Deep down in its painstakingly carved little heart, design is about knowing what to ask for, and spelling those desires in as specific a manner as possible.

To this end, I’d like to start a semi-regular exercise. Let’s call it The Librarian Design Challenge.

Here’s how it’ll work: For each challenge, I’ll introduce a hypothetical design problem, using something that’s fairly common to most libraries. Anyone who wishes to participate can do so, using any tools they like. This could be as elaborate as creating a working prototype on your own webspace, or as simple as a sketch on the back of a napkin.

Once you’ve finished, you can post it to your own webspace and send an email to toby at theanalogdivide dot com. I’ll compile the submissions, and we’ll spend some time unpacking what makes each one unique. It’ll be a little bit Layer Tennis, and a little bit of the MacGyver Challenge. I’m hoping this exercise will give we librarians a better sense of what truly makes a service useful or frustrating. As we get the hang of this, we can do even more to make all our spaces – virtual or otherwise – even better.

Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup.

You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding – the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?

Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I’d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.

Your criteria:

Design a workflow that a hypothetical user would use to sign up for your hypothetical library.

You’ll need to use this design to address the issue of proving residency. If there’s a policy that needs to be set in order to make your design work, you’ll need to explain that policy.

If you draw inspiration from somewhere, cite your sources. I’d love to hear a bit about your process.

You must have your design published by Monday, May 5th Friday, May 9th. Remember to email me (toby at theanalogdivide dot com) with the link. If you don’t have your own web space, feel free to send me the design and I’ll publish it here.

Ready, designers? (If you’re reading this, you are a designer.) Get designing.

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2014/04/the-librarian-design-challenge/feed/6http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2014/04/the-librarian-design-challenge/Deleted Sceneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/ZuztMQ9zLQg/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/06/deleted-scenes/#commentsFri, 07 Jun 2013 03:20:20 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=529This past Wednesday I had the unique privilege of doing a talk with Richard Kong and Leah White at the Small Public Library Management Institute down in Springfield. SPLMI (it’s a library event, so it’s gotta have an acronym, innit?), is an weeklong program put on by the Illinois State Library just for managers and directors of small public libraries. It’s intense. It’s fairly comprehensive. And it’s only $50 bucks for the participants. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty amazing thing that the ISL puts on, and we were honored to be invited to speak.

Our charge? Spend three hours explaining to this eager group of roughly 60 librarians everything they need to know about current and upcoming tech trends. I’ve taken to calling this slide deck The Beast:

And, as you might expect with such an energetic, inquisitive group, we had a ton of questions and ran out of time. To make sure the group gets their money’s worth, the three of us have agreed to blog the remaining sections that we didn’t get to cover. This allows us to impart some implied knowledge, as a) it’s a reminder to all the SPLMItes that we’re eager to continue the conversation, and b) it reinforces the need for library technologists to be little magpies, picking and choosing the very best tidbits from a variety of sources.

My deleted scene for this talk is all about digital literacy. I’ve written another piece on this topic in the January/February issue of Public Libraries, so if you want a more linear piece of writing on the subject, you might want to start there.

If you’d like to follow along in the slides, you can start at slide 147. This is why it’s called The Beast.

Here are my thoughts on the topic:

ALA’s task force defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills.” In other words, it’s not only the ability to research, identify, and extract meaning from all types of media, but also the skills to create meaning using those same tools.

Just what those skills are can vary just as widely – from advanced video editing all the way to basic mouse skills.

People can be at multiple points on the digital literacy spectrum at the same time. People with strong critical thinking skills don’t always have a good handle on digital tools, and digital natives aren’t automatically experts at interpreting information or doing basic research. Libraries are the only organization that’s truly open to all of these types of people. This isn’t just an opportunity for us – it’s a responsibility.

There are a few libraries that are really taking the lead on this. Arlington Heights Memorial Library (Richard’s stomping grounds) offers 5 different classes of technology instruction: Computers 101 (mouse, email, Internet); Working Life (Office-type tools); Digital Life (social media, gadgets, other web tools); Creative Life (digital media production tools); and Informed Life (research tools and other types of bibliographic instruction). Each of these tracks together adds up to a fairly comprehensive body of digitla literacy tools.

Most library staff members are likely to be at different points on the spectrum. This is a chance to really flatten the learning model, and learn new techniques side-by-side with the community. If you feel like you’re unclear on a particular concept, try to recruit a volunteer from among your patrons. Not only is it great community outreach, but it helps you to demonstrate a side of the library they may not yet be familiar with.

You should also think of this in your hiring practices. My library looks to recent graduates from graphic design and video production programs when filling its ranks of computer lab assistants. It’s a sort of mutually beneficial exploitation – we get trainers and abilities that we wouldn’t normally be able to obtain from the librarian ranks, and they get a steady paycheck and a chance to pad out their portfolio while they look for something in their chosen field.

Lots of schools also have a service requirement that can be a great place to recruit talent. I did a job shadow with a couple of kids interested in IT, and they had no idea the library was doing as much as it was. It’s a real chace to win over some new hearts and minds.

A few government organizations are starting to put some serious weight behind providing resources for digital access and literacy instruciton. Connect2Compete is an initiative of the FCC Digital Literacy Corps, designed to link end-users in need with discounted or subsidized hardware and/or broadband access. It’s also a clearinghouse for local organizations that offer technology training. Take a look at their Training Locator -your library may already be listed here.

EveryoneOn is another repository for digital literacy training. It’s a bit of a catch-all – there are resources from a variety of different websites, reminiscent of the old website directories we used to work so hard to compile in our own libraries. As a result, it sends users to a variety of different sites, each with its own interface and learning curve. This is less than optimal if you’re helping someone with a more basic level of online skills.

This is where we come in. DigitalLearn.org is a pilot project launched by PLA, with grant funding from IMLS. Rather than sending people to multiple sources, the site will be a source of uniformly designed modules, giving end-users simple step-by-step directions for understanding the digital tools at their disposal. There’s also some badge-type incentives to keep people motivated in their learning process.

DigitalLearn.org also has a back-end for trainers and digital literacy practicioners, geared to create a community of practice for us to share best practices and useful links. The site is currently in beta, with plans for a full launch at ALA this summer.

Like just about every type of instruction we offer, digital literacy training is only going to work if patrons find the right context to fit the skills into their own life. We’re going to have to work with our patrons to identify what their goals are, and how we can build teaching tools around digital tools.

When you’re done here, go visit Richard’s and Leah’s posts. We’ll get a little blog ring going, and hopefully start some interesting conversations. Whether you’re a SPLMI participant, or just someone who stumbled on this page, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on digital instruction in small libraries.

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/06/deleted-scenes/feed/0http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/06/deleted-scenes/Notes on the Midwinter Bumphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/oM2aUO6FsiU/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/01/notes-on-the-midwinter-bump/#commentsWed, 23 Jan 2013 21:16:54 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=509For those unfamiliar with the Midwinter Bump, I thought I’d post a more thorough explanation of what this crazy project is all about.

Essentially, I’m looking to quantify the ways librarian efforts contribute to book sales.

What I need: I need a co-conspirator from each awards committee. In order to conspire properly, I’ll need you to provide two titles.

The first one is easy: simply the winner of said prize. If it’s a category that awards multiple titles, I’d prefer one or two titles that would gain the most from greater attention. (I’m guessing Gone Girl doesn’t need too much of an extra boost at this point.)

To demonstrate the impact of an Awards bump, I’d like to take a similar title and compare the sales going forward. Ideally, this title is fairly “close” to the winner – similar appeal factors, sales figures, and price points.

If it’s anything like last year, we can see both immediate effects – the award leading to a spike in sales – as well as far-reaching benefits, where the prize-winning book enjoys a higher plateau for its ongoing sales. You can see how this worked with the Printz, the Newbery, and the Caldecott winners from last year:

Of course, this is only one part of the picture, and doesn’t do much to quantify the day-to-day effect of librarians handselling one particular book over another. But it provides us with a useful tool (along with things like Library Journal’s Patron Profiles) to help us advocate for the role libraries play in the bookselling ecosystem.

CATEGORIES I HAVE SO FAR:

(I’ll update this as I receive additional volunteers. Are you on an award committee? Would you like to pitch in? Drop me a line.)

The ALA Midwinter Meeting is quickly sneaking up on us. Some of you may be on their way to Seattle as we speak. This will be my first MW, as I’ve never been heavily involved in national committee work.

I’ve never been one to take half-steps into anything, so I’ll be hitting the Pacific Northwest with a lot on my plate. Here’s where you’ll find me:

LITA Happy Hour: I’ll be arriving in Seattle sometime Friday afternoon, so this seems like a good way to ease into Business Mode and touch base with all of you whom I haven’t seen (in person, at least) in a while.
Friday from 5 to 7 at Elephant and Castle.

Digital Literacy: Setting the Agenda: I’m really excited to be a part of the Office of Technology Policy’s Digital Literacy Task Force. This is your opportunity to learn what we’ve been up to and ask questions about how libraries of all types should tackle the issue of digital literacy.
Saturday in the Convention Center (TCC 304) from 1 to 2:30.

Digital Learning Center: One of the measures that the Task Force is supporting is the PLA Digital Learning Center, a web resource-in-progress designed to provide curated resources for end-users and a community of practice for trainers, librarians, and other educators. Project manager Jamie Hollier has fantastic plans for the site, but to get there it’s going to need broad support – particularly from public libraries.
Saturday at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel (Eagle Hall), from 4:30 to 5:30.

PLA Program Subcommittee: Here’s the biggie on my agenda. I’m part of the group helping to assemble the program for the 2014 PLA Conference in Indianapolis. I’m eager to bring some new types of programming into the mix, working to include explorations practical library skills, change management, and other methods for ensuring the place of the public library in the cultural marketplace. Please send me your suggestions for program ideas, and get your proposals in by the March 28th deadline.
Sunday, 1-5:30 (closed meeting)

Those are the big meeting I’m planning to attend. But there are a few big issues that I’d like to discuss with people at the conference.

Metrics: Finding new ways to quantify library data has been a major bugaboo for me for at least a few years now. There’s a sea of data out there that we can use to get a better picture of how our communities make use of our services. It’s just a matter of finding the right questions. Do you fancy yourself the Nate Silver of the library world? Find me at MW. Let’s talk.

Participatory Librarianship: All my work with the Chicagoland Library Unconference has had me thinking a lot about…well, new ways of being a practicing librarian. How do we make the patron-library transaction more participatory? Is there room for entrepreneurial thinking in the public sphere? How do we usher in new roles for libraries while staying true to the “classic” concepts of the profession. There’s a lot of stuff going on here.

The Midwinter Bump: Once again, I’d like to take a look at some of the major book awards chosen by ALA committees, and see what kind of effects they’ve had on sales. There were some clear bumps on many titles, both in terms of immediate sales figures and raising the baseline that construes an average sales week. Can you help me out? Send me an email if you’re on an award committee, and I’ll explain further.

Outside of all those categories, I’m simply looking forward to talking shop with anyone and everyone. Want to say hi? Tweet me, and we’ll meet up.

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/01/see-you-in-seattle/feed/0http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2013/01/see-you-in-seattle/Thanks, Reaching Forward!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/9mZeKF8TEMA/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/05/thanks-reaching-forward/#commentsMon, 07 May 2012 18:58:57 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=497I was given the opportunity to give two talks at Reaching Forward this year, in partnership with Tony Molaro of Prairie State College. For those of you outside of Illinois, Reaching Forward is the state’s annual conference for library support staff. This is the second time I’ve been to this conference, and I’ve always had a great time. Thanks to the fine folks at the Illinois Library Association for putting together a great event, and to Tony for being a fantastic co-presenter.
Here are the slides:

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/05/thanks-reaching-forward/feed/0http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/05/thanks-reaching-forward/Midwinter Bump: Preliminary Findingshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/ElUtYqEc6m4/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/01/midwinter-bump-the-preliminary-findings/#commentsTue, 31 Jan 2012 22:31:20 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=489How about that Midwinter Bump, eh? If you follow EarlyWord, you’ve probably seen the dramatic immediate effect the Caldecott, Newbery, and Printz awards have had on the Amazon rankings of their respective winners.

So far, we’re seeing some qualified successes in a number of categories. Here’s the chart compiling the before-and-afters that I’ve received so far. Titles that have gained in Amazon ranking since the awards are noted in green, while those that have shown a post-announcement drop are marked in red.

Chart the First:

What do we see here? For many of the awards, the difference has been dramatic. Children’s books don’t tend to make the Amazon top 100, and both Dead End in Norvelt and A Ball For Daisy cracked the top 20 within a day of the award announcement. Belpré winner Diego Rivera: His World and Ours reached #2200 by January 23rd.

Even awards given to a group of books showed considerable gains. 8 of the 10 Alex Award winners leapt up by significant degrees. Of the two that didn’t make the leap, The Night Circus held steady, and Salvage the Bones is likely coming down from a much bigger bump – that of the National Book Award.

There may also be evidence of awards affecting the other formats a title comes in. Upon seeing that Daniel Kraus’ Rottershad won the Odyssey award (given to the best audiobook for children or young adults) I mistakenly logged the Amazon rankings for the print book.

The result? Pre-Odyssey, Rotters had an Amazon ranking of 412,089. The day after the award announcement, it had climbed to 37,357. That’s a pretty big jump! (By contrast, the ranking for the audio CD version of the book is somewhere in the 900,000-1 million range.) This is just one example, but it would seem that the award has had some effect on sales.

Where we go from here

I feel like we’re scraping the tip of the iceberg here. I think there are a number of things we can do to flesh out these initial findings and create some truly bombproof data. Do you think you can pitch in? Here are the tacks I think we can take:

Find another measurement rubric to corroborate this information. Amazon metrics are nice, but they don’t give us the complete picture. Beyond the fact that Amazon is only one seller, the ranking number doesn’t give us any information about the number of books sold. (For all we know, the difference between positions #100 and #10,000 on the sales chart is just a handful of books.) I’m hoping to identify other sources of sales information. If I have to hack into the Bookscan database, so be it.

Identify non-award winning titles to serve as a control group. Getting a bump in sales is one thing, but some of these awards can set a book’s sales on a wholly different trajectory. It’d be nice to gather some of the “contenders” from various key categories. Assuming I can find a way to get historical sales records, the differences should be pretty stark. If anyone can suggest a few control titles, it’d be a big help to demonstrate the comparisons.

Create new ways to measure how libraries can influence sales. Is there merit in libraries honoring books that libraries themselves cannot circulate? Neither the current Printz nor the Newbery winners are available via current library eBook vendors. I don’t want to espouse scorched-earth tactics, but we’re putting ourselves at risk if we continue to celebrate titles that cannot be shared. Maybe we can create a better carrot, so that such a stick isn’t necessary.

Several weeks ago, I had a conversation on Twitter about creating tools to highlight titles that are available via Overdrive, Cloud Library, or Axis 360. If we have a good set of metrics in place, this could go a long way toward quantifying those things we previously considered to be intangible. All we’d need is a framework, and a list of titles to work with.

Cautious optimism
So far, the results of this experiment have been quite positive. On the eve of ALA’s big eBook summit with selected Big 6 poobahs, we’re finally starting to see some signs of being recognized as valuable parts of the publishing economy. The door’s been opened a crack. Let’s see if we can blow the sucker off its hinges.

Can you help? Leave a comment, or email me at theanalogdivide at gmail if you’d like to pitch in.

[UPDATE FOR MIDWINTER 2013: This is last year's post, but the principles of the exercise are the same. Just didn't want to reinvent the wheel.]

As the ebooks in libraries war rages on, we’ve been having a tough time putting our money where our mouths are. In my last post, I talked a bit about our’ struggle to prove their worth to a publishing industry that’s less than receptive to emotional appeals. As long as publishers see library loans as “lost sales,” it’s going to be incredibly difficult to convince the Simon & Schusters and Penguins of the world to sell us their eBooks on mutually beneficial terms.

So much of what we do to fuel the engine of book discourse is intangible by nature. As a profession that holds quantifiable information so dear, it’s a sad irony that we’re unable to document just how much we’re able to contribute to book sales, be they e- or p-.

But an opportunity to do just that is just around the corner.

After all, Midwinter is coming.

At Midwinter, ALA gives out awards for notable books in a host of categories. For awards like the Newbery or Caldecott, this can mean immortality. Children’s titles are notorious for having short shelf lives. Getting that silver or gold medal on your cover ensures that your title will be noticed (and purchased) for years to come. But we haven’t really been able to quantify how much of a bump these awards provide.

I suggest we do that this year.

Here’s my cockamamie idea: I’d like to get a snapshot of where the award-winning book in each category currently stands sales-wise, and then compare that to its sales after the award announcements. We can take a look at how the title’s Amazon ranking is affected, and use this to get a rough idea of just how much a library-given award can contribute in terms of added sales.

Of course, in order to get a snapshot of a book’s pre-award sales, I’m going to need to know who’s going to win. Good little librarian that I am, I don’t want to compromise each committee’s commitment to secrecy. So I’m going to need someone from each award-bestowing body to take the snapshot, and share it with me after the fact. Call it a white-hat black op. Are you in?

How you can help:Do you belong to one of the committees listed below? Send me an email (theanalogdivide at gmail dot com) to let me know you’re willing to rise to this challenge.

Once your group has selected its award winner, go to Amazon and take a screenshot of its Amazon ranking (here’s an example, for 2004’s Newbery winner, The Tale of Desperaux.) If you want extra credit, find its position on the Amazon Top 100 list for its main category (such as Children’s Books, Teens, or Mystery), and take a screenshot of its ranking.

After the announcement has been made, we’ll go back and see whether these titles move up or down on the list.

CODES Reading Lists – CHALLENGE ACCEPTEDThere are probably too many titles on these lists to measure everything. But if we can pick a couple of titles off of each list, it might serve as a good sample. It’d be nice to have at least one title from each category:

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/01/the-midwinter-bump/feed/11http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2012/01/the-midwinter-bump/It’s Not Just Overdrive.http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/vrfNvdtxgSg/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/12/its-not-just-overdrive/#commentsFri, 09 Dec 2011 17:42:51 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=464Sarah Houghton over at Librarian in Black dropped the latest library-world bombshell with her post “Overdrive Has Different eBook Catalogs For Different Libraries.” Her thorough research in the situation has uncovered an unmistakable conclusion: Libraries are being sold different bills of goods. The response on Twitter has fallen into the stock Twitter response: shock, outrage, threats of boycotts.

But at the risk of sounding like an Overdrive apologist, I want to urge some restraint on the part of my colleagues. After all, they’re hardly the only party making these rules here. Remember the letter Overdrive CEO Steve Potash sent out to libraries when #HCOD first went down? Here’s the relevant quote:

[O]ur publishing partners have expressed concerns regarding the card issuance policies and qualification of patrons who have access to OverDrive supplied digital content. Addressing these concerns will require OverDrive and our library partners to cooperate to honor geographic and territorial rights for digital book lending, as well as to review and audit policies regarding an eBook borrower’s relationship to the library (i.e. customer lives, works, attends school in service area, etc.). I can assure you OverDrive is not interested in managing or having any say in your library policies and issues. Select publisher terms and conditions require us to work toward their comfort that the library eBook lending is in compliance with publisher requirements on these topics.

This would help to explain why Chesapeake Public Library is subject to these terms. As a new Overdrive customer, they’re subject to a new contract – a set of hoops set by Overdrive, guided by the set of hoops their content providers have forced on them to provide content in the first place. If they didn’t have this geographic restriction, they couldn’t provide books to Chesapeake at all. But if your library has a program to offer materials for non-residents, you should be very concerned. Because your existing contract will expire at some point. Soon enough, we’ll all be subject to these terms.

But here’s the thing we should be outraged about: Our vendors have been doing this for years.

I’ll give you an example. For the past two years, I have been working with the Youth Services department to provide easier library access to schoolchildren in our area. We’ve been working to coordinate classroom management software with student library cards to give kids one-click access to the library catalog and databases. You may have seen this accomplished to great success in Nashville, through their Limitless Libraries program.

But some vendors have stipulated that schools and similar organizations cannot access library-purchased databases while on school grounds. This despite the fact that students would be using their individual library cards to gain access. They fear that the schools would abandon their own subscriptions in lieu of what the public library has to offer. After all, why sell your product to one organization when you can sell to two?

Wanting to be team players, we approached our vendors about this issue. The schools hardly have the money to purchase books, let alone databases, so we figured any sale had to be better than nothing. But Scholastic (for one) continued to take issue. Valuing our local partnership over the products Scholastic was selling, we terminated our contract, and dropped several useful databases including Lands and Peoples, the New Book of Knowledge, and The New Book of Popular Science.

We had similar issues with other vendors. Some asked us to pay larger fees to “expand” access – to an audience that we had already purchased access for. Others recognized what we had to offer and allowed this partnership to continue. In each case, we discovered requirements in the contracts that we hadn’t seen before. These are just a few examples. But geographic restrictions are hardly a new thing in our database agreements.

This is what happens when we well-intentioned librarians are expected to negotiate deals with these companies – and their experienced contract lawyers. We expect them to share our values of open access and sharing, while they’re beholden to their own profit motives. Essentially, we’re bringing hugs to a knife fight.

While that’d be a nice kicky line with which to end this post, it doesn’t really provide any answers. Well, what now? Speaking as librarians, as responsible consumers, and as stewards of public funds, we’ve got to start paying closer attention to the terms our vendor contracts lock us into. This is especially important with respect to Overdrive. Remember: they’re only providing “negotiable” terms based on a framework set up by the publishers. I’m guessing the alternative to the different catalog was no catalog at all. We channel our rage to Overdrive, and we continue to reward the Big 6 with free promotion, literary awards (i.e., free promotion for life), and continued billions of dollars in print book revenues.

I’m confident that a new way can exist. There has to be a model out there that allows books (both the p- and e-varieties) to proliferate, to share and to sell. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t see people like Gluejar, Library Renewal, and the folks at Douglas County Library System attempting to create a new niche. We’re starting to gather data that can help us move in the right direction. Outrage is good, but we need to channel it in the right direction.

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/12/its-not-just-overdrive/feed/6http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/12/its-not-just-overdrive/Reflections on Video Bootcamphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/7ZQgRtg2vHc/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/10/reflections-on-video-bootcamp/#commentsMon, 03 Oct 2011 19:22:21 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=452It’s been two years since the launch of my library’s Digital Media Lab. What was once a storage room is now an active space for patrons to edit video, create music, design artwork, and archive their old media. We’ve settled into a good routine, using a mixture of experienced volunteers and Computer Lab staff to train and work alongside patrons.

But now it’s time to go bigger. If our library is going to function as this kind of creative space, it’s going to take a much larger effort on the part of all staff. We need to lead by example, creating our own media and initiating our own conversations with the public. But before we get there, we’ve got to learn the tools of the trade.

Following the Learning 2.0 model, Video Bootcamp is a six-week experiential program designed to guide library staff through the process of planning, shooting, and sharing short videos for the Internet. While largely self-guided, it’s made to function as a social exercise, encouraging ‘Campers to share techniques and learn from one another’s mistakes.

Each week focuses on a different aspect of the video production process. The idea is for each subsequent concept to build on the previous one, until they’ve created their finished video. Here are the steps:

Week 1is all about The Big Idea. Participants must come up with the concept for the video, and explain how they plan to reach their intended audience.

Week 2 focuses on the logistics of creating the video. Campers flesh out the text of their video (either through an outline or a full script), and submit a shot list or storyboard that demonstrates how the video will lay out visually.

Week 3is all about shooting the raw footage. Using Flip cameras, screenshots, and still images, staff will gather all the pieces for their video.

Week 4 is designed to give everyone a chance to get familiar with iMovie. They’ll take all their raw materials and assemble a rough edit.

Week 6 is where the finished piece goes live. Participants are encouraged to comment on one another’s work, and reflect on their own experience.

We’ve finished one cohort of this program, and are now in Week 3 for the second group. So far results have been quite positive. We’re helping to seed our YouTube channel, and we’ve got several ‘Campers thinking about their next pieces. Our patrons have diverse tastes. In order to reach them, we’re going to need to create a diverse body of content. That’s going to require all staff to get involved.

In looking at the big picture, it’s easy to take inspiration from the creative endeavors of others. There’s a slogan nestled in the backmatter of the comic book Casanova, by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Bá, and Fábio Moon. At the end of the copyright page, they leave the reader with a simple message: “Stop Downloading. Start Uploading.” It’s a strong reminder of how much potential the Internet has as a purely creative medium.With a purely consumptive device like the Kindle Fire poised to command a significant portion of mind- and marketshare, this simple statement throws down a pretty provocative gauntlet. Video Bootcamp gives my library an opportunity to rise to this challenge. As more staff start thinking visually, we’ve got a chance to engage entire new audiences. Bootcampers can become strong examples to our community, and cement the library’s role as a creative space.

All content from our Video Bootcamp is freely available to lift, borrow, or adapt for your own projects. Questions? Feedback? Please post in the comments below.

]]>http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/10/reflections-on-video-bootcamp/feed/0http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/10/reflections-on-video-bootcamp/A Seat at the (Digital Round)tablehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/theanalogdivide/~3/iNLJ2AN9-_o/
http://www.theanalogdivide.com/2011/03/a-seat-at-the-digital-roundtable/#commentsThu, 24 Mar 2011 02:10:37 +0000http://www.theanalogdivide.com/?p=445As #hcod continues to develop, it’s been refreshing to see additional voices come out of the woodwork. While there is still a great deal of concern about publishers and librarians taking an antagonistic role toward one another, other voices have emerged from the woodwork showing that both sides have a vested stake in talking to one another.

I’ve worn myself out saying it over and over again, but it continues to bear repeating: libraries and publishers have a common interest: getting as many books in the hands of as many people as possible. We take different paths to get there, and those paths may converge and separate several times in the steps taken from author to reader. But there’s a definite symbiosis here, and one that libraries need to hammer home.

I’ve been invited to participate in Digital Book World’s online roundtable discussion tomorrow, and I hope to do all I can to advocate from the library’s side of the issue. To that end, I’m looking for additional examples of ways libraries have collaborated with publishers to market their wares. What examples are you able to share? Do you have any data regarding how libraries can influence sales?

As I attempt to collect data, I have a similar question for publishers (welcome, if you’re reading this!): What data do you have demonstrating library activity as lost sales? Where are your numbers that show patron checkouts coming at the expense of book purchases?

As I work to put more of this information together, I’m hoping to share more with Library Renewal. They’ve graciously extended an invitation to contribute to their blog, and I don’t plan on letting them down.